Erlang creator on how to get started and learning to program

There are several important threads that Joe Armstrong brings up that people are completely missing.<p>1) Typing in code directly into a shell necessarily implies you ignore all the tools and IDEs that many beginners clamour for. In fact, in my experience, coding into Notepad is a far superior learning experience than using an IDE. Nothing stands between you and your gaping ignorance, and you're forced to grapple with all the hideous details without pretty colours or intelligent auto-completion.<p>2) Typing in code offers you the chance to _deliberately type it in incorrectly and see what happens_. This is my favourite method of learning. Take a known good example, and say "Hmm, if I just do...that...to that line, what happens?". And then stare at the error output, immerse yourself in it. Just as with people, there is no better way of learning about a language, a tool, or an idea than when it is put under stress or unusual circumstances.<p>3) Tools necessarily abstract away some process, whereas when you're learning a new concept or idea the last thing you want is to shy away from the details of a process. This point reminds me of learning about long division in Year 7 at secondary school, and being forced to draw all these long arrows making clear which digits were going where. My maths teacher explained the rationale as "You have to go through all the motions, regardless of how silly or tedious they may seem now. Eventually you'll just naturally drop them to one side and not need them any more."

One key point he mentions is actually typing in the examples while you're reading and understanding what they mean. This is essential when learning a new language. You simply won't memorize the syntax without doing it (at least us mere mortals won't, there's always super-programmers who can just get it by glancing at it once).

"After 30 years you will get the hang of this and be a good programmer."<p>I wonder if a genuine beginner reading that line would be put off instantly or encouraged to find out if it really would take that long?

I remember the time I wanted to learn "C++" and bought a Visual C++ book. There were so many references to MFC and sdk-specific things that it made the learning process truly frustrating.<p>This is why I always pick learn-by-example guides when studying a new programming language and this is why I try to understand the core first.<p>Erlang is also a great programming language to start programming with because it's so simple and based on existing mathematical knowledge that many beginners already have (functions).

Reminds of this - Peter Norvig's - "Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years" <a href="http://norvig.com/21-days.html" rel="nofollow">http://norvig.com/21-days.html</a> -<p>Nowadays I setup cygwin, have cl.exe in my PATH (too bad the 64-bit bit version is separated). Have the WindowsDDK installed (liked it better than Windows SDK, as it allows me to compile for old systems)<p>Same for Linux (arm, x86, x64 machines) and OSX. The terminal is always there.<p>Along with FAR (Windows), Midnight Commander (OSX, linux), emacs (aquamacs on OSX) and build tools - make mainly, or shell script, batch files.<p>Now why? Well because I can manage it better this way. XCode4 brings the things very nice, yet the created project is quite big to control outside. MSVC same thing, but worse when comes to do multiple settings or dependencies.<p>Still... for a big company, studio - MSVC is the easiest for most people (I wish otherwise).

Joe Armstrong (one of the erlang creators) wrote a book for Pragmatic Programmers. This is the book I used to learn erlang. It was quite an interesting ride, and I think it is an excellent book for learning the language.<p>I think erlang is a really fantastic language, and the only language that I personally trust for concurrency. It is battle tested, and once you spend a couple weeks learning the syntax, quite a delight to develop in.

That's the approach Zed's LPTHW (<a href="http://learnpythonthehardway.org/" rel="nofollow">http://learnpythonthehardway.org/</a>) takes.

It's important to be as "close to the metal" as possible, <i>when you learning</i>. But once you understand the basics - find and use tools. For example, if you Erlang/OTP programmer in the open-source environment - you need to know rebar PERIOD.

Another thing that I have found useful, is to play with the same toy programs in different languages. For example once I am a bit familiar with basic constructs of the language I try out a simple newton-raphson, taylor series calculation, sieve of eratosthenes, a tftp server (protocol <i>is</i> trivial) etc.<p>To me, at least, this gives a real feel for the language in something more involved than either fibonacci, or hello- world.<p>Oh yes, emphatically agree to emacs and the shell thing. No distractions, while learning the core of a language...

&#60;trolling&#62; Code examples in that message have bugs. This doesn't work:<p><pre><code> &#62;A=1 &#62;A=2 </code></pre> It should be:<p><pre><code> &#62;A=1. &#62;A=2. </code></pre> I wonder if the author has much programming experience, particularly in Erlang. &#60;/trolling&#62;<p>On a serious note, I totally agree with Joe - the best way to learn programming is by doing it (unless your initials spell EWD) - one step at a time.

A little extreme, but I like the sentiment. Hard to argue that syntax highlighting is a learning impediment thought.

I'd say in addition to shell, editor, compiler, one should also have a version-control system handy. After manually working through a handful of simple examples, a more complex undertaking will be very nonlinear; what better way to reinforce the learning than to keep track of the enhancements, improvements and fixes, and reasons for each change?<p>This falls into the same category as copying examples by hand: being very deliberate, thinking through and providing rationale for each change you make.

The 'Zen of Joe' follow-up<p><a href="http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/2011-July/059996.html" rel="nofollow">http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/2011-July/05999...</a><p><pre><code> "Zen development - no tools - just your brain - all we are doing in making pleasing patterns of zeros and ones that follow the way of programming. If we follow the way the programs will please us." </code></pre> Mik

I agree with most of what Joe has said.<p>But I love IDEs with features that help me with refactoring. That doesn't seem to be a dangerous shortcut to me.<p>Granted, by the time you know what refactoring even means AND you know that you should do it, you most probably already know a thing or two about programming, but hey.

I agree with this. As a newbie, it's easy to get caught up in finding the perfect tools and waste a lot of cycles with that. I do use textmate because the syntax highlighting makes it easier for me to read, but anything more complex than that seems pointless (at least at my stage).

Yeah, that's a terrible tutorial.<p>a) so much magic going on. He argues against magic (IDE's, build tools), and yet there are about 5 magic commands in 5 lines of code. (module(), compile(), export_all, -&#62;, c()). As a reasonably experienced programmer who's never seen erlang code, I ought to be able to infer most of what those operators/function are doing but I can't.<p>b) Why would a super smart programmer be the right person to tell me the best way to start learning to program? I would like to hear from a highly successful TEACHER of programming.<p>c) I started with IDE's (HyperCard, RealBasic, and Xcode). Yes he is right that there is a lot of magic going on you don't understand, but you can slowly chip away at that all the while making useful things.<p>All that said, I really liked his comment about "After 30 years you will get the hang of this and be a good programmer." That's a great attitude. You'll be a novice for most of your life. Possibly all of it. That's a big part of why I like programming... there is always more to learn.

I'm constantly telling off my friend (an established programmer, just not with C#) for using Resharper with VS2010. He responds with "But it helps! It's easier to use!", then asks me "What's the difference between a reference and a 'using' statement?".

Yeah, most of amateurs think that they must have Eclipse^Wa typewriter to write a poetry. ^_^

I learned C# and ASP.NET this way. Emacs, csc.exe, and Microsoft .NET for Programmers by Fergal Grimes (Manning). Great book if you like learning languages this way.

Forget about git? U crazy?

There is no meat here. Just use an editor and in 30 years you should be able to program, don't use tools. That's all.<p>Hey boys, poor content for HN, the only valid point is who is the author of the post.